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Three examples of how performance improvement opportunities were hiding in this health system’s data

Monday, October 16, 2017

Like most health systems, Indiana University Health System (IU Health) leaders knew they had large amounts of valuable data stored throughout the organization. The challenge for the largest health system in Indiana was how to use the often-segmented data to quickly identify opportunities for cost controls and financial decision making, especially at the regional level.

To meet this challenge, the system pulled together a results-driven group called the Profitability & Utilization Support Hub (PUSH), made up of experts in revenue cycle, supply chain, clinical operations, labor analytics and more. The team’s charter: Make data-driven recommendations that could eventually drive operational and financial improvements.

The PUSH group began to identify opportunities by leveraging a comprehensive comparative database. The robust and detailed benchmarks allowed the team to see where their organization stood compared to peers.

Here are just three examples of how the team incorporated performance benchmarking to fuel its recommendations:

#1 Reducing above-average telemetry usage

The group proactively found that telemetry usage at one of the system’s hospitals was 70 percent higher than the comparison group median. The PUSH team recommended a review of the hospital’s electronic medical record order set and staffing ratios, which led to changes. The hospital’s telemetry utilization was reduced to the comparison group median within three months.

#2 Increasing oncology patient volume

The health system had recently converted one of its hospitals into an outpatient facility offering emergency department (ED) and oncology services. Using comparison data, the team discovered an imbalance between oncology patient levels and staffing levels. Leadership acted quickly and launched a campaign to increase oncology patient and provider volumes to align with staffing levels.

#3 Boosting ED capacity

The chief financial officer of an IU Health hospital asked the PUSH group for guidance to figure out why ED visits were declining even though staff reported full capacity. The data showed the hospital was efficiently using its available space — treating 20 more ED patients per day than the comparison peer average — but it had six fewer treatment spaces. Based on that insight, the hospital received approval to expand to accommodate 25 more visits per day.

If you’d like more information on how the health system achieved these remarkable results, please reach out to us.